Antonio//Paul – Modern Daze | review
The next line is everything I knew about Antonio//Paul before I listened to their debut EP ‘Modern Daze’:
.
The next line is what I know about them now:
I LIKE THEM A LOT.
You would think that this is a music project by two guys who just use their first names, but you’d be wrong. It’s their surnames, isn’t that slightly surprising? Which is the same feeling you get the whole way through the EP, slightly surprised at the changes between the songs. The guys are called Marc Antonio (like a modern Mark Antony, Caesar’s buddy, Cleopatra’s lover, Augustus’ enemy) and Michael Paul (first name, first name). They might not have had much to do with it, but they are cool names. They’re from southwest Australia, and they have cool names and there are bears on the cover of the EP.
Let’s get back to those changes. When I first played the EP in the car on the way to somewhere, I thought exactly this: “Oh, it’s a compilation”. I thought Antonio Paul was probably some sort of DJ dude who mixed all these songs, like a Mark Ronson type guy. I was wrong though. It’s two guys with cool names from southwest Australia who have very eclectic tastes in music, much like myself. So basically, they want you to live in the moment of each song separately, each song is its own thing and is not related to the other songs on the EP.
The first song, the titular ‘Modern Daze‘ is a sort of cool, laid back, float around a slow motion party in a sexy park. I’m not entirely sure what the lyric is, but I think it might be: ‘Eventually our resentment fills up, just like a bucket that’s placed under a leak/ and I don’t know how long I can stay here, but I know that my patience is running thin.’ If that’s right, I love it. If it’s close fair play to the lads. And if it’s completely wrong then I wrote it and it’s mine and I’m going to become a songwriter.
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‘Ariel‘ is like a better version of late 90s glossy American pop punk. It’s a good song and it’s much better than I’m giving it credit for with that comparison, and this is a review so I should say something else, but there you have it, that’s what you’re getting. I got over that genre of music when Blink 182 started growing up and singing about sad things, so this good song is my least favourite song on the EP.
Anyway, I wanted to start talking about ‘Coloured Screens‘. I’m in love with this shit. It starts with a girl who can’t be arsed responding to my infantile slagging with anything more than a lazy ‘Ha!’ She does it a few times and I feel inadequate because I was only slagging her because I fancy her and it clearly didn’t work and she is much more powerful than me, so I go home with my tail between my legs and play old computer games on my own. The computer game noises are in the song. This is a different genre to the first two songs. If ‘Ariel‘ influenced memories of Bowling For Soup, this is a lot more Bran Van 3000. That is very much a compliment.
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‘Made In China‘ steps into the territory of Bombay Bicycle Club (or maybe I’m only saying that because I have become obsessed with likening these guys to bands beginning with ‘B’). Two Door Cinema Club then, spell broken, and more fitting. But it’s a different sound again and I could swear that the guy in the car behind me was tapping his fingers along to the rhythm of the song. Which was playing in my car, not too loud, with the windows closed. And actually, I felt like the traffic lights were doing their red – green thing to go with the pace of the EP. People on the streets seemed happy. Was there a man dancing up ahead? Everyone was getting in on it, it’s a fun EP. Or maybe I just in a daze, perhaps I shouldn’t have been driving, but ah well, that’s a modern daze for you.
I wrote this later on, when I was not driving, so I survived that dazed drive, you’ll be happy to know.
Modern Daze is out on the 8th of September.
